Putting aside your example of "memes" as a scientific
> concept that took time to "take hold" amongst scientists
You misread that portion of my statement. I said nothing of the sort.
> How do you
> know that students in introductory biology or genetics classes over, say,
> the last couple of decades haven't been exposed to the concept of
> transposable elements, horizontal gene transfer, and their possible role in
> evolutionary biology?
Because I've taken a few of 'em. I can't promise that none of the textbooks I read from multiple top publishers ever touched on these concepts, but they certainly failed to give them their due weight.
> What reason do you have to assume that HGT in
> general, and this paper specifically, is in any way contentious or
> challenging to some reigning orthodoxy in the scientific community?
>
You're the one talking about reigning orthodoxies, not me. I'm simply excited that a fuller picture of the evolutionary process is being expressed in the popular literature. At the end of the day, the scientific community is only as useful as the information it conveys to the rest of us.
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."